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December 28, 2011, 05:49 PM | #51 |
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I think the final answer is pretty clear. If you want to be worry free, at least in this aspect, use factory ammo in your defensive weapons. There was a time in the past, when there was a limited selection of consistent, reliable factory defense loads. Those days are long over, now there is a plethora of reliable, effective factory defense ammo available, at reasonable prices. Even if they cost a dollar a piece, its nothing compared to the cost of hiring even one defense expert witness.
It is an interesting topic to discuss though and brings rise to other questions. Such as the use of extra power factory defense ammunition, Buffalo Bore, Cor-Bon, Double-Tap, etc. come to mind. The reason being, that if a prosecutor could claim a defendants handloads were extra deadly and paint one in a negative light. He/she could just as easily claim that standard ammunition wasn't good enough and you needed extra deadly factory ammo. So the advice Massad Ayoob and others have given to use the same ammunition as your local law enforcement uses and even the very handguns they use for duty, or BUGs, for civilian CCW, makes a lot of sense. If a prosecutor tried to make the claim that you were a wanna be cop, or that something was wrong with your weapon/ammo selection, it could easily be refuted, by a police witness if necessary.
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December 28, 2011, 06:29 PM | #52 | |
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The issue is one of whether the defense would need to introduce certain scientific forensic trace evidence; the rules of evidence would prevent them from doing so unless factory ammunition had been used. Should that evidence not be important to the defense, there would not be a problem. When might GSR test data be important to the defense?
One can make his or her own assessment of the likelihood that all of those things would occur, but it should be crystal clear to everyone that should they occur, the potential consequences of not being able to prevent the evidence to a jury would be very severe indeed. |
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December 28, 2011, 06:45 PM | #53 |
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It’s interesting to note that the major bullet manufacturers definitely envision that their bullets will be used for self-defense purposes. (I’m using “bullet” here to mean the projectile that flies out of the end of the barrel, not the now common usage of “bullet” to mean “cartridge”.) For example, Speer’s Reloading Manual #14 provides reloading data for its “Gold Dot” bullets, stating that they’re “the most asked-for bullets among law enforcement professionals”. Among the many millions of bullets sold to reloaders, it’s safe to assume that more than a few have ended up in self-defense situations. So far, I’ve only seen one case referenced in which the use of handloads was an issue. This is the Bias case, and the question of the defendant’s introduction of evidence concerning the performance of his handloads was never appealed. Are there other cases out there? Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think the risk of losing an otherwise defensible case because handloads were used approaches zero. I agree with the premise that it’s best to carry factory ammunition, but I think the adverse legal implications of using handloads are a bit overblown.
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December 28, 2011, 06:52 PM | #54 |
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After all the posts I am going to introduce a twist that maybe of a challenge to you because no one has mentioned black powder guns.
Lets say I am out with my black powder rifle and pistol practicing or hunting and a guy for some reason, lets say mental disorder, attacks me with an ax. I kill him with my black powder rifle before he can get me. How does that differ from using hand-loads in a modern firearm? In BP each load even if you use the same powder, cap, and bullet could be unique as I may load a bit different then you. So what do you think when you look at this case under the current train of thoughts on this thread. |
December 28, 2011, 06:55 PM | #55 | ||
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Here's what you said. Quote:
Pardon me for being so direct, but there's a little too much rearranging of peoples words as of late, and most statements don't need to be reinterpreted, rearranged, or re phrased. Sometimes we may need to readjust our filtering systems so we hear what others are actually saying. No I'm not perfect, and yes, that includes me from time to time. Willie's post just struck a cord, you might say. Just my thoughts on the matter. Last edited by Nnobby45; December 28, 2011 at 07:30 PM. |
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December 28, 2011, 07:24 PM | #56 | |
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Any time you have residue you're talking about "short distances" well within the range where as one would consider necessary for a self defense defense. Sure different loads, different powders, different age of powders, different guns, different temperatures etc etc etc, would very the distance a bit, regardless of whether its from reloads or factory. The ideal that bullet X would leave residue and Y distance, and bullet Z wouldn't, tells me there are other problems besides whether factory or reloaded ammo was used. Again, I'd recommend finding a few books on Firearms investigation and evidence and do some research on "range determination from powder marks". Determining such, like much of firearms investigation is not an exact science. You can not say "every time" or "if you do X, "Y" will happen". It just don't work that way except on TV CSI shows. That's like saying bullet "A" will drop a deer in its tracks "every time". Another example is a case where the prosecutor's expert witness said no Post 1900 Remington Rifle was produced without out serial numbers, therefore the defendant had to possess a rifle with a "defaced or removed serial number". I talked the DA in dropping that charge. (We were dealing with a Remington Model 721).
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December 28, 2011, 08:19 PM | #57 |
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OldMarksman your reply didn't seem "curt" but rather like someone tired of the argument directing a newbie (me) to oft recited information, so no offense taken on my part. I did actually read those posts and even went back to re-read them. Truthfully some of it is above my "I watched CSI on TV" mentality but I did try. As for the argument of a handload being heralded to be worse than a factory load simply doesn't make sense to me. However in todays world of bizarre court findings/rulings I don't discount a prosecutor/judge/jury being able to come up with a strange decision. If the only deciding factor was the apparent deadliness of the bullet used then everyone should use Ball ammo not what LE does. I do understand that the ballistics, powder tatooing, GSR etc., could be considered to be skewed as it was created by the defendant in the case of reloads, but if there are bullets left unfired, and another mag or two full I would think that the evidentiary rules would allowing testing of a few of them, leaving plenty for prosecution use. Just as testing a small container of drugs which would destroy some of it, with plenty left over to prosecute with. To me its more hype than concern. I guess if I ever end up in a courtroom (heaven forbid) explaining to a judge why I shot someone who was attacking me with a .45 ACP filled with reloaded ammo, I will look back and say, OOPS you guys were spot on. Would carrying a "tuned" .45 ACP be worse than carrying a GI syle, would a magazine holding more than 10 round make a defendent seem more "dangerous", how about night sights? All the things we do to our chosen firearms to make them more user friendly could be taken to be making them more of a "intent to cause death" platform. Maybe i am simply hoplessly naive as I am not a Peace Officer, and haven't been involved in even a speeding ticket, went to court twice, both times as a witness both dismissed, the closest I got to the courtroom drama was talking with the bailiff.
I would rather let the circumstances of the shooting and my testimony be the deciding factor than whether or not I chose to reload or not. Would it make a difference if shot someone who was breaking into my home with a .30-30 stoked with reloads, or a .12 ga. firing reloads I make to dove hunt? Honestly I can't see how it would. I guess there are extenuating circumstances that could apply in any situation but for the trememdous majority of cases I just don't see that it would make a difference. I could see a prosecutor working harder on making a case of me being a wannabe rambo or cop by simply having a firearm on me to start with that whether or not it was a reload or one of the best SD factory loads made. All in all I will continue to carry reloads and not worry too much about it, but that is my choice, as my reloads are much easier to shoot that the few Federal Hydrashoks I have in a box due to the lower recoil and somewhat lower noise level. OK I'll stop being the argumentive newbie for now, irrespective of whether or not I agree with you guys I do very much value the information and your experience so I say Thank You! (incidentally I did look in my stocks of ammo and found a full box of WWB ball ammo I had transferred to a plastic box and forgotten,?) |
December 28, 2011, 09:40 PM | #58 | |||
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Here's a brief explanation that I posted in another thread on this same topic:
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One of the squirrelly things about this debate is that there isn't much appellate law on it. The quick primer on this aspect of the problem is as follows: Trial-level cases are not reported as binding decisions. That means that in order for us lawyer-types to find out about it without actually going down to the courthouse and digging through paper records, someone (almost always the defendant) has to appeal. And they have to be appealing on the issue of handloads, or it's not going to be discussed in the appellate opinion. Then the appellate court has to actually mull it over and write an opinion, rather than simply affirming or reversing, and then it has to publish the opinion. All in all, you have to have: 1) A shooting; 2) involving handloads; 3) where the shooter is charged; 4) handloads become an issue at trial; 5) the prosecution successfully keeps that evidence out at trial; 6) the defendant is convicted; 7) the defendant appeals on that specific issue; 8) the appellate court writes an opinion on that issue; and 9) the appellate court designates the opinion for publication. I've spent some time on Westlaw, a very large legal research site, and generally on the internet, trying to find out more about this issue over several months. I searched far and wide, in many jurisdictions. I found as follows, when the issue is expert testimony based on handloads: Admissible: 0 Inadmissible: 1 It's not about what a decent ballistics lab can do in reproducing handloads. It's about whether those lab techs will ever see the inside of the courtroom, using the handloader's records or recipe.
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December 28, 2011, 09:52 PM | #59 |
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Interesting information, and oddly enough fairly easy to understand (for me). But with you knowledge, background and interest in the subject do I correctly understand that you found one case where the reload vs. issue was inadmissable and none where it was? Or was that the expert testimony about reloads or is it basically the same thing.
Again I say thank you, the amount of information and knowledge some of you gentlemen (and maybe ladies too?) have is amazing. |
December 28, 2011, 09:54 PM | #60 | |
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I'm not arguing for the use of reloads, But: Based on the studies by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime:The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun", http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck1.html there were between 80K to 700K cases of SD with a firearm depending on which survey you want to choose, but even taking the low number, 80,000, or 1 out of 80,000 cases results in problems with reloads, assuming of course the case in contention is actually a self defense case.
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December 28, 2011, 09:55 PM | #61 | |
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With that said, and based on my non-existent BP experience, I come to this conclusion: The risk posed by using handloads in self-defense becomes unavoidable if one uses BP to defend oneself. There are no exemplars to be had for comparison. Beyond that, I really need to let the BP problem percolate in my head for a while. However, I will freely grant you that if you've got an axe-wielding maniac coming at you, you've got bigger fish to fry than worrying about the rules of evidence, and you need to use what you've got!
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December 28, 2011, 10:02 PM | #62 |
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kraigwy: Because of the whole "it's gotta become an appellate opinion before I can find it" issue, I don't know. But my read on the rules of evidence (both state and federal) tells me that the handloader has the uphill battle on getting any testing, or any expert testimony based on his own recipe, admitted into court. I'm not disputing whether the odds of it coming up in one particular case are high or low. They're low, or I would have found more cases dealing with this issue.
Panfisher: What I'm talking about is expert testimony, in which an expert could have testified as to the GSR residue which could be expected at a given distance. The one case on point here is the Daniel Bias case, and you can read up on it here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m.../ai_n26806104/
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December 28, 2011, 10:04 PM | #63 | |||||
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December 28, 2011, 10:05 PM | #64 | |
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pax |
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December 28, 2011, 10:15 PM | #65 | |
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The threshold question is how often has handloaded ammunition been used in an incident in which self defense was claimed and which went to trial? Historical research is helpful only if there's sufficient historical data. If the question is something like, "Is a private citizen who shoots someone and claims self defense more likely to be charged if he used handloads compared with factory ammunition?", or "Is a private citizen who shoots someone and claims self defense more likely to be convicted at trial if he used handloads compared with factory ammunition?", the availability of useful data depends on (1) a large enough sample of private citizens having shot someone in claimed self defense; and (2) a large enough subset of those private citizens having used handloads. I suggest that the vast majority of people who keep guns for self defense aren't enthusiasts and use commercial ammunition. Indeed, even many of the members here, who are enthusiasts, use commercial ammunition for self defense. Just because there is insufficient historical data doesn't mean that professionals can't draw reasoned conclusions about how likely a particular result might be under certain circumstance. Indeed, it often happens in the practice of law that a particular issue of interest has not previously been addressed by an appellate court, and one must make a reasoned judgment without the guidance of on point precedent. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out repeatedly in his books Fooled by Randomness, the Hidden Role of Chance (Random House, 2004) and The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2007), "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Taleb, a securities trader and professor at the University of Massachusetts, provides some interesting and useful insights into strategies for dealing with rare events. |
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December 28, 2011, 10:31 PM | #66 |
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Spats, what I was trying to allude to, without saying, (by having people study Firearms Investigation Studies and Text), is that though analyzing powder residue in determining distance (short range) is possible, it would be found of no great use since most smokeless powders give almost identical residue.
Plus there are too many other variables that come into play. Again I stress that if someone is truly interested, since there are virtually no court cases, to study the subject. There are several text on the subject that could be found in any good library.
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December 28, 2011, 10:42 PM | #67 |
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kraigwy, I am going to see if I can get hold of some of those texts, to learn more about the science side of it. You say that "most smokeless powders give almost identical residue." But do they leave identical powders at different distances? Will the residue on a human from a distance of 2 feet be the same as the residue from the same shot at 15 feet? 20 feet? If not, then distance can become an issue. If the BG survives, he will undoubtedly tell the police that he was just wandering home from choir practice, minding his own business, when he was shot for no apparent reason . . .
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December 28, 2011, 10:56 PM | #68 | |
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December 28, 2011, 11:03 PM | #69 | |
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But as mentioned above, all smokeless powder (within reason) would be pretty much the same. From what I understand, is if you don't have residue from a factory round then you wont have residue from a reload (everything else being the same). So without reading the judges' mind, that could be the reason the testing of the reloads weren't necessary or allowed. One has to study the subject to understand what powders do and how far the do them. It is an interesting subject.
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December 28, 2011, 11:35 PM | #70 | |||
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December 29, 2011, 12:07 AM | #71 | |||
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The judges' rulings are governed by the rules of evidence for the admissibility for scientific forensic trace evidence in the jurisdictions at hand. In some states, those rules are based on the SCOTUS ruling in Frye vs. United States; others, the rules stem from the SCOTUS rulings in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals; some states use their own rules. Notwithstanding the rather minor differences among the rulesets, it is most unlikely that any judge would admit evidence based on testing of ammunition other than factory loads; it is almost certain that no judge would ever admit evidence based on testing of ammunition loaded by the defendant; and under the rules in effect at this time, there no reason to assume that a judge would have any basis for not admitting evidence based on testing factory ammunition. While the subject does require specific knowledge of both the pertinent areas of the law and of scientific methodology, the reasons are spelled out rather well in layman's terms in some of the above posts, Post 39 in particular. This is really not the kind of thing on which a conclusion can drawn from how many trial court judges may have ruled one way or the other. It is a matter of established legal precedent based on things that extend far beyond the realm of ammunition. Last edited by OldMarksman; December 29, 2011 at 12:12 AM. |
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December 29, 2011, 12:13 AM | #72 | ||||||
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According to his research, during a 37 year period (1970 to 2007) in Idaho, only 12 self defense shootings involved handloads. Six weren't prosecuted; apparently they were clearly justified. Six were prosecuted, resulting in six convictions -- four on pleas and two on jury verdicts. See this post and this post. Quote:
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December 29, 2011, 12:38 AM | #73 |
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Fiddletown go back and read my post. What I was saying was it wouldn't matter, if you have residue with one, you'll have it with the other in cases of suicide or close enough to wrestle with a firearm
Again, I recommend one study your library's text on the subject. As I said, I'm not suggesting anyone carry reloads, I'm just recommending studying the subject to see what each will and will not do. I personally think its an interesting subject but it does not determine what ammo I carry. I have other beliefs on the subject which aren't part of this topic but are referenced in Glenn's article mentioned in post #7.
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December 29, 2011, 12:51 AM | #74 | |
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You understand the underlying science. But the job that Spats, Bart or I would have is getting that science in front of a jury so that the information can be used to establish or refute certain claims. You know about the science, but Spats, Bart and I know about getting it into evidence. Unless the information can be put before the jury, it doesn't necessarily do anyone any good. |
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December 29, 2011, 01:19 AM | #75 |
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Fiddletown...
Admissibility of evidence is one of the main reasons trial court decisions are appealed. You cannot say definitively that every court in which evidence of this type is tendered will find it inadmissible. Reloading isn't a particularly arcane pursuit; load recipes are published in many reloading manuals, and virtually all reloaders stick to those recipes. Reloaders don't dream up their own loads like some sort of black magic; that's a recipe for disaster. Cartridges can be easily disassembled, and the weight of the powder charge, the brand and type of powder used, the bullet weight and manufacturer, and even the primer brand can be determined, just the same as with a factory load. Since the defendant didn't manufacture any of the components of the cartridge, but merely assembled them, it's quite easy to check for consistency. In the Bias case, evidently the defendant used three different powder charges in his handloads, so there was no means of determining exactly what powder charge fired the fatal bullet. That had to be a major reason that the GSR evidence was inadmissible. I see no reason why the rules of evidence would preclude the introduction of the foregoing types of evidence, since none of it is speculative in nature.
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